


playing in the dark

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: The outside observer might think Grant’s in trouble.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 7
Kudos: 95





	playing in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Week twenty-eight! Is the year over yet?
> 
> It's been a long week, y'all. Thanks for reading and please be gentle if you review <3

The outside observer might think Grant’s in trouble.

He’s been forced to his knees with his hands cuffed behind his back, his ankles shackled together, and a collar around his neck. There’s a chain running from the collar to a bolt on the floor, just barely long enough that he can kneel with his back mostly straight—definitely not enough that he can even sit back, let alone stand. Six well-armed men surround him, ready and willing—eager, even, after the beating he gave them earlier—to shoot if he so much as blinks weird.

The outside observer would, of course, be wrong.

It’ll be child’s play to slip his cuffs, and once his hands are free, he’ll make short work of the shackles. The collar/chain situation is a little trickier, but he doesn’t have to worry about _that_ —his captors will unhook the chain themselves, once this little show is over. That’ll do it for the armed guards, too; once he’s not their problem, they won’t be watching him as hard.

He just needs to wait, and the opening will come. He can ditch the cuffs and shackles, steal a gun, and make his escape. Nothing he hasn’t done a dozen times or more over the course of his career.

The only trouble he’s really facing is enduring the indignity of being _sold at a fucking auction_.

Or so he thinks for the first two hours. Then—

“No, no, I don’t like this one. Far too skinny.”

…Oh shit. Is that—no. No, it can’t be. Not even Coulson is dumb enough to—

“Don’t you have anyone less sleazy-looking?”

Fuck. It is.

The crowd parts, allowing Grant to visually confirm what his ears have already told him. Simmons and Skye are here, undercover (at least, he sure as fuck _hopes_ they weren’t stupid enough to identify themselves as SHIELD) in a room full of the worst scum the west coast has to offer.

Simmons is wearing a daring red dress—too daring; he can see her twitching with the urge to pull the hem down—and Skye is all in black, obviously playing the part of her bodyguard. Too bad no one told her bodyguards are usually more seen than heard.

“Seriously?” she’s asking. “Is this the best you can do? Doctor Daniels is looking for _quality_ , not these…Chippendale rejects.”

For fuck’s sake, Skye.

Their escort, an anonymous-looking man in a tuxedo—because of course this is the kind of classy human auction where each customer gets their own personal shopper—smiles pleasantly.

“Perhaps if Doctor Daniels told me what in particular she’s looking for…?” he hints.

“Muscle,” Simmons says, surprisingly evenly. For a minute Grant’s almost impressed with the cold tone she pulls off…but then she keeps going. “As you can see, my bodyguard here is getting older and will need to be replaced. E-eventually. In the next decade—or two!”

Oh, Simmons.

May—playing another bodyguard and doing a much better job at blending than Skye and Simmons, which is how he missed her at first—looks almost imperceptibly pained. Less from the commentary on her age and more from Simmons’ obvious impending spiral, he’s guessing.

But Skye not-so-subtly steps on Simmons’ toes, and it’s enough to pull her back in.

“Which is why I want someone uncooperative,” she says, back in that cold tone. “Someone who can be used as a test subject for my newest creation and then—once that’s perfected—put to work as a bodyguard.”

“Your newest creation?” her personal shopper asks, full of polite curiosity.

“A serum that targets the frontal cortex,” she says absently. She’s scanning the room—looking for him, Grant’s guessing. “To suppress free will.”

Her shopper looks taken aback for half a second, then settles back into his pleasantly bland mask. “I see! In that case, Doctor Daniels, I’d recommend our newest acquisition.”

“Oh?” Simmons asks.

“Yes,” he says. “Most of our stock is well-trained and perfectly obedient, you see. We pride ourselves on the behavioral quality of our products.”

Simmons’ smile is sickly and unconvincing. Beside her, Skye’s gone green. “Of course.”

“Our newest acquisition, however,” the shopper continues, motioning in Grant’s general direction, “hasn’t been through any training yet. He’s quite rebellious.”

Simmons, Skye, and May all follow the shopper’s gesture, and Grant’s gotta be honest—it’s kind of touching how relieved Simmons and Skye look to see him. May’s got a better poker face, but she does make a deliberate moment of eye contact that suggests she’s been worried, too.

Not surprising when he disappeared mid-op and got himself _kidnapped by human traffickers_. This entire day has been seriously embarrassing.

“This one?” Simmons asks, drawing closer.

“Yes,” the shopper says. “I realize he’s rather unkempt—”

“No,” she interrupts. “No, he’s much more promising. Though I expect the price to reflect his condition.”

She still looks vaguely sick, but she doesn’t sound it. Actually, she sounds _pissed_. He’s betting he’s gonna get an earful about the hasty patch job the stab wound in his side got.

“Of course,” the shopper says, sounding just a little resigned.

“Gave you a fight, huh?” Skye asks.

“Indeed,” the shopper agrees. “Which is why I imagine he’ll be perfect for Doctor Daniels’ purposes.”

They’re close enough now that if he weren’t shackled, he could touch them. Figuring he should do his part, he yanks against the restraints, struggling like he wants to lunge off the little platform they’ve got him on and wrap his hands around the nearest person’s throat.

(As the nearest person is the jackass who just referred to him as a _product_ , it’s not much of a stretch.)

“Yes,” Simmons agrees. Her smile is pretty obviously forced, but hopefully the shopper’ll be too blinded by the possibility of a sale to notice. “He’s a perfect specimen.”

It’s an indicator of how seriously Skye is taking the situation that she doesn’t comment on that. She doesn’t even look _tempted_ to.

“I’ll take him,” Simmons says, and the shopper smiles broadly.

“Wonderful!” he says, and motions to one of the guards behind Grant.

He’s got half a second to take in the sudden alarm on Simmons’ and Skye’s faces and the way May tenses. Then there’s a prick of pain in his shoulder, a flare of heat, and—

Grant’s head is throbbing.

“Fuck,” he says.

He wouldn’t usually—specialist training 101 says that if you wake in pain, you play dead until you’ve fully assessed the situation—but he recognizes the lavender-and-disinfectant scent surrounding him. He’s in the lab on the Bus. Shirtless, judging by the feel of the metal table beneath his back, but with a thick blanket spread over him to keep him warm.

That suggests he’s in Simmons’ care, which means he doesn’t have to worry about his safety. That in mind, and considering the effect the lab’s very bright lighting would probably have on his headache, he decides to keep his eyes closed.

“Quite,” Simmons agrees. Her light footsteps give away her approach, and then there’s a soft hand resting on his shoulder. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got shot in the head,” he says honestly.

She tsks. “Close enough. You were injected with a very strong sedative—meant to keep you docile in transport, we were told, but it didn’t pair well with your existing head injury.”

Yeah, no kidding.

Grant’s never been the best at self-reporting, but that’s because he knows his own limits. Most of the time, there’s nothing a doctor can do anyway, so why bother bringing it up? That said, when there _is_ something a doctor might do—or might need to know—he’s not dumb enough to keep it to himself.

“I was out for a while before,” he says. “When they cornered me, they knocked me out.”

Her hand tightens on his shoulder, then falls away.

“I wondered,” she says. “Fortunately, all of your scans came back clear. Still, if this headache persists for more than twenty-four hours, please do let me know.”

“Will do,” he promises. Then, because he doesn’t hear anyone else nearby, he asks, “The team?”

“Getting debriefed,” she says. “I’m afraid things got a bit…chaotic after you were sedated.”

Grant thinks about that for a second. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.” He can hear a smile in her voice. “But you can rest assured that your captors will never kidnap, buy, or sell another person.”

“…You took down the entire ring, didn’t you?” he asks, resigned.

Not that he doesn’t _agree_ with wiping a bunch of human traffickers off the map, but an operation like that—the buyers, the sellers, the guys who kidnapped him in the first place, wherever everyone involved was getting their financing, the people who advertised the auction—it’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of people, and a lot of _danger_.

It’s not the kind of mission the team should’ve been tackling without him, their _specialist_.

Not to mention, he couldn’t have been unconscious _that_ long. What the hell did they _do_?

“We did,” Simmons says brightly, and pats his shoulder. “Not to worry, everyone’s fine.” She pauses. “Well, everyone who works for SHIELD. I’m not sorry at all to report that a number of traffickers were shot and/or blown up.”

…Yeah. He’s not gonna ask.

“I restitched your injuries, by the way,” she adds. “In addition to evaluating your head wound and assessing your various bruises. Fortunately nothing vital was injured, but the stab wound—it was very close. Please take it easy for a while.”

Grant…is not making any promises. It’s damn embarrassing that a handful of no-name, generic bad guys got the drop on him—means he’s getting soft. He’s gonna need to step up his training.

Saying that’ll only upset Simmons, though, so he chooses instead to lift his hand to cover hers, still resting on his shoulder.

“You did good in there,” he says. “With the cover.”

There was room for improvement, sure, but she fooled that shopper just fine. _And_ she kept herself from running right up onto the platform Grant was on and tutting over his injuries immediately, which must’ve taken a lot of self-control.

“I’m impressed,” he concludes.

“Thank you,” she says, very softly, and squeezes his shoulder. “I’m just glad we found you.”

He pats her hand. “Me, too.”

The silence that follows is weirdly tense, and he doesn’t like it. She should be bubbling over with glee at her success fooling a bunch of bad guys, not—whatever it is she’s doing, just standing here holding his shoulder.

Not that he isn’t touched by her worry, but half the fun of her crush on him is how cute she gets when he compliments her. She’s not the type of woman to blush or stammer (not unless he really works at flustering her)—she just…brightens. Already a sunny kind of person, Simmons under his attention lights up like the damn sun.

He doesn’t like her subdued.

“Of course,” he adds, “considering how bad you are at lying, maybe I should be asking you some questions.”

“Questions?” she repeats. He can almost hear her brow scrunching in confusion.

“About this serum you’re developing?” he prompts. “Trying to suppress free will?” He dares to crack one eye open, just to make sure he aims his disapproving frown in the right direction. “Do we need to have the mad scientist talk again?”

He closes his eye again, satisfied, at the way the laugh he surprises out of her lightens her face.

“No,” she says. “It was a lie, I promise.” She drums her fingers on his shoulder—absently, he’s guessing. “I’m not sure how such a drug would even work, to be quite honest. You see, the frontal cortex is where decisions are made, but—”

Grant lets her voice wash over him, taking in her thoughtful (and gradually more excited; he hopes this doesn’t turn into her actually deciding to experiment with that serum) babble without trying to decipher the words.

It’s still embarrassing that a bunch of grunts got the better of him, and the sting of being put on _auction_ is gonna take a while to fade. He’s also not happy that the team took care of the whole ring, denying him the opportunity to get some of his own back.

But he’s gotta admit…after a decade of working on his own, nothing but his own wits and training to back him up? This whole team thing’s kind of cool. It’s nice to have someone to come pull him out when he slips up—to have a half-trained rookie and an untrained scientist throw themselves into danger without hesitation to save him. To have a commanding officer who crosses lines on his behalf.

Having people care about him? He doesn’t hate it.

If Simmons’ thoughtful/excited babble reaches the point of excited enough to start pacing, and if he catches her hand when she starts to move out of reach, and if the adorable way her voice squeaks a little mid-sentence from the surprise warms him all the way through—

Well. He’s had a long day, all right? Sue him if he decides to indulge.


End file.
